02/07/2013

Beggars' Banquet

Take some common human propensities, say envy and greed, add a measure of misinformation, stir the ingredients a little, and you have another feast of political scarcity. But don't get confused.

For the currently less fortunate members of society, the costs of envy
can be especially high when it misdirects their conceptions and
energies. Where poorer people are lacking in human capital – skills,
education, discipline, foresight – one of the sources from which they
can acquire these things are more prosperous people who have more of
these various forms of human capital. This may happen directly through
apprenticeship, advice, or formal tutelage, or it may happen indirectly
through observation, reflection, and imitation. However, all these ways
of advancing out of poverty can be short-circuited by an ideology of
envy that attributes the greater prosperity of others to “exploitation”
of people like themselves, to oppression, to bias, or unworthy motives
such as “greed,” racism, and the like. Acquisition of human capital in
general seems futile under this conception and acquisition of human
capital from exploiters, the greedy, and racists especially distasteful.